By Joe Langabeer
In the past week, spilling over from the past year, we have seen a flurry of headline articles from the tabloid press over the ‘scandal’ of grooming gangs. In particular, there has been a barrage of criticism aimed at the police following Baroness Louise Casey’s comments following an audit that she led, which suggested there was a failure of police teams not to record ethnicity data on grooming gangs out of fear of appearing discriminatory.
The report has prompted a knee-jerk reaction from the Labour Government, who have suddenly launched a national inquiry into grooming gangs—despite previously being adamant that they wouldn’t, on the grounds that there has already been one, and its recommendations were never implemented under the last Tory government.
The Casey audit specifically criticises the lack of data collected on the ethnicity of perpetrators. Casey’s justification for these comments was that, during her research and previous inquiries into the Rotherham case, she found that the majority of abusers in grooming gangs were Pakistani—at 62%—compared with “British” abusers at 22%. Her conclusion from this study argues that better data collection on ethnicity is needed, and that “divisive political agendas” must be avoided in order to understand why Asian and Pakistani men are disproportionately represented in some areas—so the issue can be addressed more effectively.
The problem with Casey’s audit and her reporting on ethnicity is that it tends to contradict findings from previous Home Office reports. A report from 2020 found that research into grooming gangs concluded most offenders were commonly white, and that some studies suggest there is an over-representation—both in the data and in the media—of Black and Asian offenders.
A BBC article from 2023, which discusses the evidence around grooming gangs and ethnicity, quotes earlier research that found that, 42% of perpetrators in group- and gang-based child sexual exploitation were white, with 14% defined as Asian or Asian British and 17% “black” though with ethnicity being recorded by police officers, rather than self-identified. The BBC does not cite the source of this data, but notes that it is likely outdated—collected a decade ago (in 2013) and from only 19 police stations, However, by saying this, the BBC indirectly acknowledges that those are the only stations reporting it, which could indicate that most grooming gangs may indeed be white.
Jay Report 2022
This is not the first time we have received a report similar to Casey’s. In 2022, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, led by Professor Alexis Jay, published a report exploring child sexual exploitation by organised networks. That report also called for better data collection, including clearer categorisation of ethnicity and age. However, Jay’s report is explicit in stating that this data should be used to help prevent racist assumptions about grooming gangs.
In both Casey’s audit and Jay’s report, much of the data centres on cases like Rotherham. Casey in particular relies heavily on data from Operation Stovewood, a major investigation into a group of men of Pakistani heritage who were found to have committed child sexual abuse against two young girls in Rotherham during the 2000s.
Bizarrely, she offers no other significant data points to support or challenge her conclusions. Only in February this year, eight white British men in Bolton were convicted of multiple sexual offences against a teenage girl spanning two years. It seems odd that such a recent and high-profile case was not included in her analysis—nor were the many other cases in which the perpetrators’ ethnicity has been reported and recorded. Casey appears to have selectively excluded this data.
At its core, this is the major issue with the current public discussion. It is only to be expected that the mainstream media and right-wing tabloids will seize on this to stoke a racist agenda—but it is Louise Casey herself who has enabled this type of discourse. When her report was first published, she did not make it clear why more data on ethnicity was needed. Only later did she criticise the Tories for politicising the issue.
What she could have said was that better data is needed to counter the narrative being pushed by the right—to show, for instance, that the majority of offenders in grooming gangs are white British men. But she didn’t. Instead, she left space for the right-wing to infest the airwaves with their racist dog-whistles.
There should be no attempt to downplay the horrendous manner in which these grooming gangs operate, or the failings of the local authorities concerned. Young people have been abused and tortured at the hands of individuals who have no place in a civil society. Yet it is quite clear that the victims themselves do not want this to become a political football, with the likes of Elon Musk childishly attacking politicians on X for not demanding a national inquiry. We could also be calling for an inquiry into the practices of Tesla’s management, where The Nation has reported allegations that women face a litany of sexual abuse and harassment by other employees and staff—yet Musk doesn’t want public outrage over that!
If the right wing—and, subsequently, the Labour Government, which seems to bend to the will of the right’s alleged grievances on a daily basis—truly wants to tackle the sexual exploitation of children, it must start in the domestic home.
“Unhelpful red herring”
In an article in the Financial Times, James Simmonds-Read from The Children’s Society, which works to protect children from exploitation, argues that the focus on Pakistani men abusing white girls is an “unhelpful red herring”. It presents data where the majority of child sexual exploitation takes place within the domestic home, often perpetrated by relatives and family friends, and accounts for 1,125 group-based crimes. More disturbingly, nearly half of the suspects in group child abuse cases were themselves children, with more than one in three aged between 10 and 15.
For many campaigners, the issue is not that ethnicity is underreported—it’s that child exploitation in all its forms is not being adequately investigated or researched.
But there is an answer, and it’s one that very few on the right—including the likes of Elon Musk—want to admit: it is misogyny and sexism that enable child exploitation. Criticism of Elon Musk’s mismanagement of women at Tesla is not just a matter of being petty; it highlights the fact that a large section of the capitalist class treats women appallingly.
It is bad enough to exploit their labour—but for these misogynistic men to exploit women’s bodies in the workplace is even more shameful. And the type of misogynistic rhetoric Musk espouses trickles down to impressionable young people on social media, where his voice is amplified in part due to his ownership of the “X” social media platform.
We have seen a rise in misogyny, and in physical and sexual violence towards young girls perpetrated by young boys. In an interview Ian Critchley, the lead for child protection at the National Police Chiefs’ Council, stated that, due to their having better access to misogynistic content via smartphones, there has been an increase in abuse and attacks on young children. In that same article, The Observer also uncovered a staggering 81% rise in reported incidents of sexual abuse and inappropriate sexual behaviour in schools, with young children—often boys—targeting young girls.
Misogynistic and abusive social media posts
Much of this misogyny thrives on social media platforms, including X. There were clear spikes in misogynistic content after Elon Musk took over the platform. According to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, in association with the BBC’s Panorama programme, there was a 5–6-fold increase in follower accounts being created when Musk acquired Twitter and reinstated Andrew Tate. This was accompanied by a shocking 7,900 misogynistic and abusive posts.
And when it comes to child exploitation, Musk clearly doesn’t care when it happens on his own platform. Although he claimed, on acquiring X, that tackling child sexual abuse material online would be his “top priority”, Thorn—a Californian non-profit that collaborates with tech companies to combat such material—ceased cooperation with X after Musk stopped paying them.
Since then, it has been revealed by NBC News that there are now more sellers of child sexual abuse material on X than ever before, with distribution made easier through the platform’s “Communities” feature. The Canadian Centre for Child Protection reviewed this content and found that, within minutes, they were able to identify known child abuse victims, some as young as seven. One thumbnail linked to a channel showing a video of a boy, estimated to be just four years old, being sexually assaulted.
There are no moderators, and no effective safeguards on X, and Musk has essentially allowed paedophilic material to proliferate—driven, it seems, by his political grandstanding against so-called ‘cancel culture’.
But remember how all of this furore started? Musk was the one who sent a tweet attacking Keir Starmer—and Starmer’s government bowed to his whims, rather than challenging Musk over his own platform and the appalling material being shared freely on it. Like so many on the right, Musk doesn’t care about the safety of children. They are merely peddling a right-wing agenda, blaming minorities because it suits their political narrative. Reform UK and the Tories are no better.
Tory MP protected
Professor Alexis Jay authored a report in February 2020 on the cover-ups of sexual abuse within Parliament. This revealed – and it was barely mentioned in the media at the time – that Margaret Thatcher, admired by Farage and the Tories, had a Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS), Sir Peter Morrison, who was protected from allegations of child sexual abuse by senior Conservative officials—allegations that were never passed to the police. Morrison became PPS in 1990 and was knighted just a year later, thanks to his loyalty to Thatcher.
Yet the Tories and Thatcher—who allegedly helped cover up child abuse—have barely been scrutinised. Meanwhile, the same woman who investigated those events also contributed to discussions on the child grooming scandal. And which story did the media choose to feign outrage over? The grooming scandal, of course—because it serves their interest to defend the state and protect alleged abusers within government, rather than confront uncomfortable truths about themselves. It is easier, and politically convenient, to stoke racist rhetoric against Pakistani communities based on a minority of appalling cases than it is to acknowledge abuse embedded at the heart of power.
When we discuss sexual violence and abuse, we rarely talk about the underlying reasons why people commit it. People do not commit sexual violence because of their ethnicity—they do it because of power. In the majority of cases involving sexual abuse, particularly against children and women, the perpetrator is someone the victim knows and trusts. For children, it is most often a family friend or relative. For women, it is frequently their partner or husband. In the workplace, it is usually a manager or someone in a position of authority.
Although the likes of Reform UK want to blame immigrants or “non-natives” as part of a racist narrative, they entirely miss the point about why abuse happens—and this only makes matters worse by ignoring its actual causes.
Reform has no moral standing to be taken seriously on this issue. Just a few days ago, Darren Grimes, former GB News presenter turned councillor in Durham, posted a joke about Labour councils and the rape gang inquiry, which has since been condemned by the public. Meanwhile, his party leader uses venomous language to feign seriousness about grooming gangs. If we were truly serious about tackling child sexual abuse, we would not allow our social care system—the very infrastructure designed to support vulnerable children—to be falling apart.
Chronic lack of social care funding
In a report for Sky News, a social worker who wished to remain anonymous criticised the chronic lack of funding in social care. Combined with the increasing number of cases and risk assessments, the situation is becoming unmanageable. They expressed concern that the system will continue to fail more children as the crisis deepens.
And how did we get here? Years of austerity under 14 years of Tory government have left services crumbling. Children in poorer areas have become increasingly estranged from community workers. According to a research report by the University of Huddersfield, this lack of contact has bred mistrust among parents. With fewer social care workers and rising caseloads, visits become less frequent. This leaves gaps where exploitation, including sexual abuse, can occur because vulnerable children are not being adequately looked after.
If Labour genuinely wanted to tackle child exploitation, rather than just caving in to demands for a national inquiry, it should, instead, have prioritised rebuilding funding and resources for social care work—halting outsourcing and fully restoring it to the public sector. Every child and parent should be supported by a care worker who can offer help and intervene when signs of abuse emerge.
It should also ban X and take social media algorithms into public ownership, ensuring they no longer promote or profit from child sexual abuse content. These platforms must be made accountable to democratic oversight, not the interests of paedophilia-enabling profiteers like Elon Musk.
Misogyny in schools must be tackled—not by simply encouraging children to watch Netflix dramas like Adolescence, as Starmer keeps suggesting—but by embedding anti-misogyny education into the curriculum and rebuilding youth centres. Young people should have more chances to socialise offline, in safe and inclusive environments, rather than being exposed to the misogynistic echo chambers of social media.
If anyone, including Louise Casey, were truly serious about tackling child sexual abuse, they would stop fixating on the ethnicity of grooming gangs and enable the racists that plague Reform UK and the Tories. Instead, they would focus on rebuilding our public infrastructure so that children are properly cared for, supported, and taught not to perpetuate abuse themselves.
